Tag Archives: chrysalis

monarchs…

26 Sunday Jul 2020

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yesterday morning my youngest grandson was dropped off at ten by his two older brothers who were heading off to a two-day Pokémon event…

about fifteen minutes after they left he spotted the first of our monarchs as it emerged from the lily of the valley where they had gone to turn into their chrysalis stage… I had been watching this chrysalis for a number of days as it was the only one we could find…

perfect timing, and he spotted three more as they came out to dry their wings…

the first one had a wasp attached to its wing and it took me quite a while to get it off… not sure if that hurt it or whether the wasp had already injured it…

the others eventually flew off after their wings dried out, but this little male spent most of the day with us… finally it was gone, so we are hoping that it was able to fly…

what a wonderful experience to share together;-)…

moving…

10 Friday Jul 2020

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my caterpillars are on the move…

there is only one small sized one left on the milkweed… and I have found two new eggs so that is exciting…

my grandson spotted a caterpillar crawling in the lily of the valley, so I am going to lay down on the deck and see if I can find some in their chrysalis stage…

spent quite some time this morning laying on a lounge cushion and lifting leaves in the lily of the valley searching…

eventually I found one chrysalis… I also marked the leaf so I can spot it again…

will need to keep looking…

obsessed…

05 Sunday Jul 2020

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maybe, just maybe, I am obsessed with the Monarchs… I can’t even think of how many times I have gone by the milkweed to check on the caterpillars, lol…

saw more butterflies landing in the plant and maybe leaving eggs;-)…

there are small caterpillars, medium sized caterpillars and large caterpillars…

such fun to see where they are on the plant and how much they have munched through…

both of the biggest caterpillars vanished this morning… I was worried they had fallen off the milkweed because they were in leaves that were bent way over…

wasn’t sure if they were getting ready for the next step, but then found both of them in the lily of the valley… so I put them back on the milkweed…

now that I’ve done some research maybe they were moving on… apparently they can travel up to ten metres away from the milkweed to move to the chrysalish stage…

if they move again I will just search to see where they end up…

butterflies…

08 Monday Aug 2016

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this morning I was closing the curtains in the dining room and caught sight of a swallowtail on one of the hostas…

so pretty, but I didn’t move fast enough to get a picture…

part way through the morning my daughter texted me to see if I could FaceTime with her… very unusual for her to want to do that when I am at work, but I said okay…

she wanted to show me the Monarch that was just emerging from its chrysalis… she knows how I love them… a neighbour of hers had brought them a twig with some chrysalides on it so the family could watch the process…

around noon she sent me a picture of them letting it go in the backyard…

it reminded me of the August that I was on vacation and was able to document the caterpillars growing, turning into the chrysalides, and then emerging as butterflies… 

I made a wonderful PowerPoint of the experience and keep thinking I should make it into a picture book…

we didn’t see many butterflies last week at the Shirley Richardson Butterfly Garden, but did get a picture of this little one…